Seen and Heard web extra

Published: Summer 2004

The theater department staged George Bernard Shaw's _Arms and the Man,_ about an anti-romantic love triangle, in Washington Hall in April. It marked the end of an era—the last academic production to be performed in the 123-year-old facility. Beginning this fall shows put on by the Department of Film, Television and Theatre will be staged in the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts, nearing completion at the south end of campus. Washington Hall will be reserved for productions by student organizations and residence halls plus some performances by non-University groups. . . . A crew from the Travel Channel was on campus for three days in April filming around Washington Hall. The network is planning a show on _Haunted Campuses_. Legend has it that George Gipp caught the cold that led to his fatal bout with strep throat after sleeping on the steps of the building. His spirit supposedly can be heard running across the roof. The show is expected to air this fall. . . . History professor Kathleen Biddick taught a class spring semester called Haunted Campus that dug into the origins of Notre Dame. A class project culminated with a candlelight procession around campus that honored Native Americans who lived here before the University was established and also contemporary tribes people. Representatives of the Pokagon Band of the Potowatomi Nation and of the Miami Nation participated in the planting of a "memory tree" with a commemorative plaque outside the log chapel. . . . Gary Sieber, an adjunct faculty member in the Film, Television and Theatre department (and WNDU-TV weekend weather guy) was having lunch on campus one day this past semester with a visitor, David Welna, National Public Radio's congressional correspondent. (He's also the brother of Kellogg Institute Associate Director Chris Welna.) Sieber told the NPR reporter that he had asked his students how many listened to NPR. The answer: none. One said he had heard of the network. . . . Fencers Kerry Walton, a senior this past year, and Forest Walton, who was a fifth-year senior, are the only brother and sister ever to earn All American honors at Notre Dame. . . . _Sports Illustrated On Campus_ and Cool Water Cologne sponsored a male beauty pageant at Legends, the former Alumni-Senior Club, in February. The title of Mr. Cool Water went to John Hart, a junior living in Keenan. He won $100 for himself and his dorm. Appropriately, representatives from the women's dorms judged. . . . Students for Environmental Energy sponsored a contest in February to see which dorm could reduce its energy consumption the most from same month the year before. Welsh Family Hall, a women's dorm, shed 8,310 kilowatt hours to win the $100 first prize. The second- and third-place finishers were also women's halls—Badin and Welsh's West Quad neighbor, McGlinn. . . . More than 400 Notre Dame alumni signed a letter to the University's trustees in January complaining about management of the football program. Among their suggestions to make the team better was to have the athletic director concentrate solely on football. . . . Former Irish and NFL great Paul Hornung created an uproar in late March when he told a radio interviewer he thought Notre Dame should lower its admissions standards so it can recruit more black players and better compete with large state schools. The University issued this response: "We strongly disagree with the thesis of his remarks. They are generally insensitive and specifically insulting to our past and current African-American student-athletes." Hornung later said he meant to say that it's hard for all athletes to get into Notre Dame. In an op-ed published April 4 in _The New York Times,_ Monk wrote that the University's admissions standards for "special interests" like football recruits have remained the same for 30 years. He also said fans have called for easing admissions standards in the past during down periods only to see the program rebound to win national championships. . . . A feminist student group has been granted official recognition for the first time. The Feminist Voice grew out of an informal club started last fall in Pangborn Hall by then-junior Mayra Gomez. As many as 25 women and men students from Notre Dame and women from Saint Mary's would meet Sunday evenings to discuss things like myths about feminism—as in, feminists are all women, gay, hate men, promote abortion or oppose Catholicism. The club's adviser, Pangborn Rector Heather Rakoczy, had to relinquish her role with the club when she was named director of the new Gender Relations Center in LaFortune. She'll be continuing as Pangborn's rector. She says Feminist Voice will aim to educate the campus community about feminist ideals like social, political and economic equality. . . . It was bound to happen: The highly visible "Gay? Fine by Me" orange T-shirt inclusiveness campaign spring semester spawned innumerable spoofs, including "Zahm? Fine by Me," "Heretic? Fine by Me" (at the Irish Inquisition) and "Girls—What's Not to Like?" The trend continued into Bookstore Basketball with team names that included "Straight? Fine by Me," "Fat? Fine by Me" and "Marvin Gaye? Fine by Me.". . . Saint Patrick's Day usually falls during spring break, so the campus escapes the effects of the intoxicated overcelebration. This year the holiday fell during the week after break, with predictable results. On a whim, an estimated 40 to 50 students living off-campus marched onto campus carrying a banner with one word printed in large green letters: "PARADE." A few of the group played musical instruments. The revelers eventually entered DeBartolo Hall, singing and dancing while classes were in session until they were ejected from the building. In a more serious incident, a student fell a second-floor balcony during a party at the College Park apartments near campus and had to be hospitalized. Six others students at the party were arrested and charged with underage drinking or public intoxication. . . . Police caught 21 underage Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students in The Library Irish Pub in April. It was the second bust in a year at the bar downtown on East Wayne Street. . . . M. Paul Serve '61, '65Ph.D. came out of retirement spring semester to teach the classes his friend and former teacher, chemistry professor Rudy Bottei, would have been teaching if Bottei hadn't died in April 2003 at age 73. Serve, who knew Bottei for more than 40 years, was a member of the chemistry faculty at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, for 38 years until he retired in February 2003. Notre Dame asked him to teach General Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry for a semester while the chemistry department searches for a permanent replacement. The un-retiree reports that he scored a great success after spring break when he decided to discuss the chemistry of licit and illicit drugs. "It really turned the students on. The classroom was a filled with students, not just the ones who signed up for the course." He said he thinks the interest grew out of media reports about students dying and buildings catching fire in explosions at illegal methamphetamine labs. . . . Students collected more than $4,000 during Lent for Operation Rice Bowl, a program primarily affiliated with Catholic Relief Services. Participants were given small boxes and encouraged to keep filling them with change throughout the Lenten season. . . . The museum store in the Snite Museum of Art closed in March after nearly 18 years in business. A museum official attributed the demise to reduced foot traffic that began when the stadium expansion gobbled up nearby parking spaces, the need for more gallery space as the Snite's collection grows, and competition from the enormous new bookstore on Notre Dame Avenue. . . . Current and former members of the men's crew team will make waves this fall as they race on the Saint Joseph River in the organization's annual alumni varsity row. The event is scheduled for the morning of the October 2 home football game against Purdue and will kick off with a Mass out on the river. For more information, visit the team's website at www.ndcrew.org. . . . _In one of the more memorable_ installments of its "Ten Questions With" feature, _Scholastic_ magazine interviewed Juan Alba, a 6-2, 285-pound senior who puts shot and throws discuses and hammers for the track and field team. Alba's distinction? He is reportedly only the second person ever to eat, in one sitting, three extra-meat burritos from Boracho Burrito, an eatery near Ironwood and 23. Boracho is known for its generous portions. The first person to finish three extra-meats, the magazine said, was former Irish football center Jeff Faine, now with the Cleveland Browns. The final question put to Alba by _Scholastic_ was if he would try to break the record. He said no. "When you're eating three extra-meat burritos with sour cream, there's just something that takes over your mind and says you should never eat burritos again. Four would mean 10 pounds of meat inside you. I'll go [back to Boracho Burrito], but I'll just eat pizza puffs."